Accuracy has also been a issue with the SIA data as a growing portion of companies were modeled especially the emerging players in Asia and the large dinosaurs in Japan.
Quality and integrity in the data matters to users, not just frequency

The reality is that the SIA organization has been on a downward spiral for a long time now. Most of the growth in number of companies is coming from the fabless and IP area which the SIA has not tracked consistently or with any meaningful granularity.
For Intel, AMD, and Xilinx the move away makes sense. Why should they share their company information when the weight of their business is exposed in the SIA numbers? There is no benefit to these companies when they own a large part of their respective markets and the SIA subsidizes the information to their competition. Additionally, the categories that SIA still tracks are so archaic that it has no relevance to the structure of the market today.
The analyst and financial community that have been so reliant on the numbers must now do their own research once again to add value and maintain credibility. My team moved away nearly 10 years ago from SIA and conducts our own bottoms up research on semiconductor companies. Most of the companies in the semiconductor and system universe rely on our data. It's time for a new organization to emerge that is more in tune with the dynamics of our business.

@the_floating_gate- thanks. We are aware of that story. But we are talking about completely different companies opting out of different programs. I will grant you that the reasoning for withdrawal is probably similar in both cases.
But the plot thickens on industry cooperation going down the drain. Based presumably on the withdrawal of TSMC, UMC and Nanya last year, the SIA said Wednesday it is ceasing the SICAs reports all together. If you ask me, this is a real shame.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4237282/SIA-pulls-plug-on-fab-capacity-report

Let's see if anyone can shed more light on this issue. (Yes, we will get to the bottom of this.)
You're not up to date:
Updated: foundries opt out of chip manufacturing stats
(already forgotten? obviously I recommend to check your own stories)
Peter Clarke
10/21/2011 1:52 PM EDT
Asked why he thought the Taiwanese companies opted out of the program, McClean said it may be because TSMC and UMC represent such a huge portion of the world's foundry capacity and no longer wanted such detailed information on their manufacturing published each month.
Years ago, McClean noted, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization stopped breaking out programmable logic statistics, mainly because two dominant firms, Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp., had emerged in that area and no longer wanted to make available detailed information about their sales each month. McClean speculated that TSMC and UMC may have had similar feelings about the breakout of foundry manufacturing data, though, as he noted, both companies release detailed sales information on a monthly basis.

When the largest chip maker leaves an organization, it is usually a kiss of death. Maybe Intel being the main supplier in its category felt it was too visible and competitors could deduce what the company's strategy was from the WSTS numbers. Intel does not need WSTS but WSTS needs Intel.

We all suspected that there must be something beyond "resource" issues, which AMD cited as a reason for their pulling out of WSTS.
Let's see if anyone can shed more light on this issue. (Yes, we will get to the bottom of this.)

Paying members including the "financial community" received the data upfront compared to "Joe SixPack".
Than look at the track record of analysts in regards to projecting INTC's quarterly results over the last two years - having access to the data didn't do much good unless they were BSing which is not completely out of the question.
Besides they never broke down in units and ASP for Joe SixPack - I bet you the analysts who paid $ had the data.
Intel still publishes pricing as far as I understand.
On one side its a loss - but on the other it provides a more leveled field.
Compared to TSMC sales data the data is trailing anyway.
Just check the TW data - plenty of hidden data - just like TSMC et al have to display capex in "real time".

Interesting but incomplete news report. I am sure AMD did not leave the Consortium in order to save $1700 per year. Diddo for Intel, even if their annual dues were a bit more. They must have been ticked off by some action of WSTS, or they see added value in not publisizing the stats. In either case, an in-depth interview with an Intel spokesman is in order here.